Practice GMAT Sentence Correction Question

Return to the list of practice GMAT sentence correction questions.

rss
The flood of home foreclosures that followed the large economic recession in 2008 caused housing prices to drop precipitously, which lead to the writing down of mortgage backed securities, and, to fears of a Great Depression-like downward spiral.
Correct Answer: D

The main issue in this sentence deals with ensuring a concise parallelism in listing the two results of the economic problems.

(1) The economic trouble led to two actions, which should be parallel: (a) write downs of mortgage backed securities (b) fears of a Great Depression-like spiral.

  1. the phrase the writing down of..., and, to fears of... is not parallel
  2. the phrase the write downs of... and fears of is not parallel as the first the should be removed
  3. although this phrase is technically parallel, the inclusion of the before each result makes the sentence awkward and not concise
  4. the phrase write downs of... and fears of... is both concise and parallel
  5. the phrase write downs of... and, fears of... is not parallel

Return to the list of practice GMAT sentence correction questions.